Are You Cutting Back on Home Improvements?

Americans are spending less on their homes, and Home Depot is feeling the pain. The retailer reported a 66% drop in fiscal first-quarter net income, writes Mary Ellen Lloyd in today’s Journal.

Conditions that have kept homeowners from taking on major home renovations and repairs continued in the first quarter in many parts of the U.S., says Frank Blake, the company’s chairman and chief executive, in the article. In February, the chain reported its first annual sales drop in its 30-year history and expects worse results this year.

It’s harder to fund home improvements these days — banks are freezing or downgrading home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), as June Fletcher noted in this House Talk column. The financial payback is also less — the resale value of these improvements is sliding, as M.P. McQueen wrote in a Journal article last week. (Though green renovations are seeing better returns.)

Readers: Are you making fewer home improvements these days? –Lauren Baier Kim